IONITY Installs First 50 Ultra Fast Charging Stations

Within 8 months, IONITY installed 50 stations

The installations of IONITY fast charging infrastructure accelerated and the number of stations increased to 51 out of 400 planned in Europe.

Interestingly, another 43 stations are at various stages of construction. The pace of installations is very important as several manufacturers are launching new long-range electric cars, which needs to be supported by at least a basic infrastructure for long-distance travel.

The IONITY is a joint venture of BMW Group, Daimler AG, Ford Motor Company, and Volkswagen Group with Audi and Porsche.

For comparison, Volkswagen’s Electrify America in the U.S. already installed about 90 stations out of 500.

Well, how many BEVs which can charge with 800V are currently available? 😉
Hopefully my ICE will last some more years so my next car is an *affordable* BEV with 800V CCS charging, like 90kWh battery, tow-bar, …

P = U * I, which also means for I = const (limitation due to the cable), that if U is cut by half, P is also reduced to the half. In other words: 350kW@800V means 175kW@400V. Look at several charging curves news here, escpecially concerning Fastned. One curve is there usually made using a 175kW charger for a 400V CCS BEV.

When reading articles here about charging curves, also concerning Fastned, always 175kW chargers are mentioned when talking about 400VDC charging. If only the grid connection would be the problem, more power should be possible (until somewhere the max. current of a cable is reached).
And didn’t you notice that what I wrote is also valid concerning the cable to the grid? 🙁 (but at least there (due to AC) changing the voltage is a quite easy task, just use the right transformer)

The 175kW chargers FastNed uses are a ABB modular setup you can find it on the ABB homepage. They can have a second module installed and deliver twice the power. They can actually according to ABB deliver 450kW with two modules.
It is just that no one wants them configured that way because it would just increase the peak draw from the grid. In any case this type of charger is fully CCS revision 2.0 compliant and can deliver between 150V and 920V. The maximum output power can be modulated. If the car hits the maximum set power threshold the current will be tapered and the charger doesn’t work in constant current mode anymore but in constant power mode.

Honestly, 150 kW is enough. The bigger issue is that we need cars to get more efficient – as they are getting. Currently, the Model 3 can do 10% to 72% in 30 minutes. At a 150 kW charger, that will be 24 minutes. 200-250 miles in 24 minutes. Works for most situations.

I agree. When you consider how much time you save year round by not going to a gas station and standing next to the fuel pump (often in ugly weather), and how comfortable it is charging in your car while browsing on your phone, 200 km in 15 min is fine.

Porsche’s claimed 300kW would be outstanding, but a luxury of limited value, IMO, even though it’s not as fast as gas.

In Spain and Portugal Ionity has a deal with local petrol company CEPSA, to install 100 superchargers between 2019 and 2020. The firsts of them, must be ready soon. This means that will be 15-20 gas stations with 5-6 superchargers from Ionity each one in the Iberian Peninsule. Good news for long distance travel.